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12 June 2013

Enumerated Twice?

Is there any chance that your relative was enumerated more than once in a census? People who moved around census time, were working a distance from home, were in school, etc. might have been listed on more than once census page? My grandmother was listed with her parents and the household where she was a "hired girl" in 1930. Her brother had moved sometime close to the census date and he and his wife are enumerated in their hometown and the town where he had moved to work.

Another instance of being counted twice occurred when grandchildren were visiting their grandparents on the day they were enumerated and then they were counted on a different day when their parents were enumerated. This also happened with other people who visited relatives when the latter were enumerated.

In the 1930 census, my aunt was written down twice, but one was lined out so either someone realized she was at school, in the same city, or the enumerator was told after it was written down. Her youngest brother was counted twice in the 1940 census. Once at his parents house and one at his own place.

It happened to my great great grandfather in 1900 in Oklahoma. For the first enumeration, he was an inmate in the US jail at Muskogee. Two weeks later, he was enumerated at home, in another county, after being released from jail. According to family lore, he had been wrongly accused of horse thievery.

I was lucky! Because he was in "two" places at once I found his mother's married name! She was her son by previous marriage, and I didn't know what her name was so no death certificate or anything! As a result I found out quite a bit! Never knew how my great grandparents met until then! Complicated...seems her step son married a woman and was living with his father in law, his wife and a border, and hired help. The hired help was her son by second marriage and the half brother of the man living in home with his "father-in-law(also two places at same time) her husband had just died and so that was why. When I dug further...my great grandmother was listed in that particular home as a boarder ("father-in-law's home) when she was in fact the niece of the wife of the head of the house! Did not have a clue until I found RUFUS TOWNE in Clara STOCKER's home in the 1900 Census!

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